


Fly Away Home

by dendraica



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Unexpected friendships, like wham, protect and comfort Paz 2k16, protectiveness that comes out of freaking nowhere, there's nothing that ice cream and glittery 90's films can't improve, zombie lore is wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 07:44:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6186343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dendraica/pseuds/dendraica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pacifica’s parents have found a brilliant yet dangerous way to save money while their finances are in limbo. Staying overnight in a cemetery filled with the walking dead is really not a great plan, but unfortunately Pacifica’s the only one who seems to have a shred of wisdom on the subject. When things go drastically south, can she count on Robbie Valentino?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fly Away Home

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by @probablyfakeblonde's headcanons about a Robbie and Pacifica sibling/friendship.

There was an unwritten rule that opulence and extreme luxury were how a Northwest should always live.

It was also, without question, how a Northwest should be laid to their final rest.

There were only a couple days until the sale of the mansion went through, but until then they were practically penniless. Daddy had sniffed in disdain at the thought of using what remained of their money to stay at some flea-ridden inn. He chose instead to camp them all in the family mausoleum - which was easily the size of an art gallery.

Its intricately carved oak doors were closed to the public, hiding the splendor within. The floor and pillars were made of white marble. A fountain burbled pleasantly in the center of the arranged sarcophagi. Vases with peacock feathers and velvet-upholstered reclining couches were scattered artfully throughout the building; the concept of death downplayed into a five star lobby. 

Priscilla had claimed the nicest couch for herself. She set down folded blankets and pillows, then stared around blankly, as though trying to figure out where the maid bell was.

Pacifica watched her father pace, angrily snapping at the poor real estate agent who was finalizing the sale of their home. He couldn't be pleased that the hillbilly was the buyer. Right now he was probably sliding down the banister and feeding wild forest animals in the kitchen. Hopefully he'd take good care of her poor ponies, or at least find them excellent homes.

She slid down against a nearby pillar, sighing with boredom and more than a little homesick. "Pacifica, you're getting your clothing all wrinkled," Priscilla scolded. "You do realize we no longer have a laundress?"

Unbelievable, her mother's tone - as though all of this was her fault. Pacifica fought back against the well trained guilt, instead beginning to protest that her dress was made of wrinkle-free cashmere. She was interrupted by a loud bang and a drawn out moan.

Mrs. Northwest tilted her head. "That sounds like your Great-Uncle Pierre," she remarked to her husband.

Distracted, Preston irritably held the phone away from his ear. "Yes, yes, keep it down!" he snapped.

"Wait, but . . . isn't Uncle Pierre dead?!" Pacifica squeaked. "L-Last summer, I mean, we had that big funer-"

"Pacifica Northwest, small people have funerals," her mother scolded. "Northwests have obsequies."

"Not anymore," the blonde grumbled under her breath. The banging and moaning started up again, louder than before. It was echoed by a chorus of hungry wails. Pacifica heard the wet slapping of boneless hands and limbs upon the doors to the mausoleum.

Even worse, there seemed to be answering wails coming from within the marble sarcophagi. She could swear she heard one of the lids shift.

"Mom, Dad," she whimpered, "I think we should go to a hotel before it gets any darker."

"Nonsense," snapped Mr. Northwest, ending his call with the much beleaguered agent. "I'd rather sleep to the pleasant sounds of riff-raff pleading to get in than to submit this family to the horrors of only one ice machine per floor!"

(Neither his wife nor daughter had the heart to tell Preston some hotels were equipped with even less.)

"We will be perfectly fine behind these doors, Pacifica," Priscilla agreed, primly. "The undead of our lineage have far too much class and decorum to feast upon kin."

"But -"

"Mind your mother," warned Preston. "Now get ready for bed."

He didn't have the bell, but his tone was enough to make Pacifica look for a couch of her own.

She shivered beneath the blankets for what seemed like hours, flinching in terror as the door shuddered and groaned under the weight of so many pressing bodies. Pacifica couldn't understand how both her parents were actually sleeping through all this. Her stomach grumbled from both stress and emptiness; they'd had nothing but foie gras in a can for dinner.

Pacifica pulled the covers over her head, miserable and tired and frightened. We're safe in here, she whispered to herself, over and over again until it seemed almost true.

One of the heavy sarcophagus lids fell off with a crash. Pacifica's scream was ear-splitting.

Preston sat up cursing, and her mother groaned, rolling over and covering her head with the pillow.

"Pacifica Elise Northwest, I have had enough!"

"Daddy!" she shrieked in warning, pointing at the open tomb, where a bag of bones and withered flesh was attempting to sit up.

"I'm well aware of the state of Aunt Petunia's remains, thank you! If you'd care to remember she was buried without her dentures, it would save us all quite a bit of embarrassment!" Preston snapped. He got up to rummage in a bag and came up with a flashlight.

Pacifica could not take her eyes off the grisly sight, trembling from head to toe. Her father pressed the flashlight into her hands. "You march yourself out to the car, young lady! You can sleep in there and give the rest of us - including our esteemed ancestors - some peace and quiet!"

"What?!"

"I'm quite certain I did not stutter! OUT!" Preston pushed her bodily across the smooth floor toward the smaller iron worked door in the back of the building. Pacifica was barefoot and could get no traction to prevent him from shoving her outside. "And don't get eaten by the riff raff!"

He slammed and locked the door behind her. She panted in the darkness, practically frozen in terror, as she heard the frontal assault on the mausoleum die down significantly. Countless undead faces turned to sniff out easier prey.

Pacifica had no choice. She bolted like a rabbit.

\-------

There really wasn't much on television at this time of night, not unless he was interested in dumb crap, like the home shopping network. Robbie bit into his sandwich, irritably changing the channels. 

Another nightmare about evil, sentient geometry homework meant he was going to be awake for the next few hours. At least the semester hadn't officially started yet. The school board had pushed it back a week to give the youth a chance to recover from "The Unpleasantness." Such a stupid thing to call it, but whatever.

At least Tambry was awake too, though more because she'd lost track of the time playing Call of Duty with her MLG team. Robbie grinned fondly and checked his phone; she hadn't responded to his text yet. That's how he knew she was deep in some mission, probably yelling at Thompson to stop shooting her in the ass.

Robbie finally settled on old reruns of Bewitched. Why the hell not, it wasn't like anyone was around to catch him at practicing nose twitches.

A rapid pounding startled him badly, nearly making him drop his food. He stood hurriedly, trying to figure out who the hell would visit the house at two in the freaking morning. Tambry would have told him if she was coming over, and she wouldn't knock that loudly.

"Please," sobbed a girl's voice. "Please let me in!"

Robbie swore softly and climbed over the couch to get the door. Hopefully it wasn't someone who'd been bitten - that was all he needed right now.

A tearful blonde twelve-year old stood shivering on his doorstep, one side of her face dirtied with graveyard muck. She looked familiar, but more pressing were the slavering forms approaching from behind. Robbie groaned in irritation as the zombies came within range of the porch light.

He moved aside so the girl could scramble inside. She hid behind him, watching with wide eyes as he tossed his sandwich at the walking corpses. They dove for it, hands tearing at lunch meat and bread with frightening intensity.

"Ugh. So dramatic," he muttered. "Is that even necessary?"

"What? B-But I thought they ate brains!" Pacifica squeaked.

"Tch. Yeah, that's what they think too. It's just cause they're hungry and watched a load of bad horror movies before kicking the bucket. Once these guys go pastrami and mustard, they don't tend to go back." He closed the door on the unsettling sight. "You okay? You didn't get bitten or anything? I've got some old Sprite you'll have to drink if you did . . ."

He trailed off as a pair of arms wrapped around his waist. Pacifica clung to him, shaking, hiding her face. As with all unexpected touches, he felt uncomfortable, but didn't just shove her away.

Robbie was used to the whole walking dead thing; he'd lived around it his whole life. Others would not be; certainly not little girls in their pajamas. What was a kid even doing out here this time of night? He'd seen his share of idiots toward the end of summer, but she wasn't exactly wearing thrill-seeking attire. Robbie sighed and very gently put his hands on her shoulders.

"Okay, look, I know you're freaked out, but nothing /bit/ you right?"

"N-No," she hitched, clenching fistfuls of his hoodie. "Nothing!"

"Were you with anyone?"

Pacifica wailed something unintelligible into his chest. Robbie blinked in alarm. "Oh man, is someone still out there?"

"Yes, but they're fine," she managed bitterly, pulling back and furiously wiping her face. She got a streak of sludge on her cheek. "M-Mom and Dad are sleeping in the mausoleum. I was making too much noise so they k-kicked me out to go sleep in the car."

Robbie scowled, recognizing her now. Normally he didn't think very highly of the Northwests, but he had even less respect for parents who threw their kids to the wolves. "Dude. That's messed up."

She was actually incredibly lucky to have made it intact, coming from that part of the cemetery. The older section was clustered with statues and headstones of all sizes; she'd had countless chances in the dark to tripping and injuring herself, or even falling into open vaults. That was a bad enough risk even without the zombies.

Yeah, he should try to stop imagining what /could/ have happened to her. It was making him have weirdly strong urges, like kicking a couple of rich douche-nozzles directly in the face.

Pacifica hitched and started to pull back a little, letting go of him reluctantly. He could see her shaking, and something inside him kicked into gear and took over.

"Hey, uh . . . you're totally safe here, okay? Since zombies don't know the difference between brains and canned tuna, and they've never broken in. Honestly, they're kinda like really /pushy/ stray cats."

"That can bite, kill, and also eat you?" she asked doubtfully.

"Well yeah, technically, so can cats. Just forget about movies and tv, they're all wrong. The only dangerous part about real zombies is becoming one after you get bitten, and there's even a way to fix that."

He trailed off, seeing Pacifica's eyes glass over a bit as she stared around the mostly darkened living room. Robbie was thankful it was too dark for her to see the chilled coffin case, with a body inside of it. She really didn't need that.

"You know what, I'm going to make another sandwich," he said, turning off the lamp. "You're welcome to come make one for yourself, or just raid the fridge."

Pacifica seemed to perk up a bit at the prospect of food. "Really? I'm starving! I mean . . . um, you won't tell my parents everything I eat, right?" she asked nervously.

She somehow looked even smaller than Mabel, tear tracks cut clearly through the dirt on her face and blue eyes shimmering with more. Robbie wanted to fight her parents, but that wasn't going to help her right now.

He smiled a little. "Yeah, whatever, so long as you don't tell mine I put flamingo pink lipstick on Mr. Warren, like, right before his viewing," he whispered conspiratorially.

Pacifica snickered and nodded, relaxing almost immediately. Robbie did a silent mental victory punch.

His phone started to buzz. While Pacifica investigated the fridge, Robbie quickly texted the whole situation to Tambry.

His awesome girlfriend, being awesome, was pretty torqued by the whole affair and told him a few things he could do to keep the girl relaxed and calm. Which Robbie was grateful for; beyond food he didn't have a clue how to keep Pacifica entertained. He didn't consider himself good with kids; Robbie had babysat only once in his entire life, for the Gleeful child, and oh god, just . . . never again.

By the time he'd hung up, Pacifica had made up a small plate for herself. It consisted of an apple, a few slices of cheese, some olives, water crackers, and a few celery sticks. Robbie frowned. That couldn't be what she considered /excessive./

"We've got leftover pizza too," he offered.

"I saw it," Pacifica said, and her voice had an odd note of longing to it that made Robbie again want to do bodily harm to someone. "But I can't have food like that, it's too fattening."

"What?! No, running for your life means you get to eat whatever you want tonight. Screw what anyone else says, eat some pizza."

"I don't know if it's okay," she fretted.

If he had to play dirty, then that was fine too. "Come on, don't make me eat pizza and ice cream all by myself, I'll feel like I just got dumped or something."

It won him a friendly laugh, then she gasped, bouncing a little. "You have ice cream?"

"Yeah, we have either Rocky Road or Butter Pecan."

They ended back on the couch with bowls of ice cream (he still couldn't convince her about the pizza, but this was a step in the right direction at least). A late night viewing of 'The Last Unicorn' was on, and Pacifica seemed completely enthralled with the unicorn every time she appeared on screen.

"One of my ponies is named Amalthea," she informed Robbie. "I hope she's happy where she is."

"I bet that Fiddleford guy will let you visit if you ask him. He seems pretty chill."

It went on like this for most of the night, Robbie either listening or prompting Pacifica to keep talking, until all the horror drained out of her and left behind contented exhaustion.

He wasn't sure at what point either of them fell asleep, but 'Labyrinth' was playing when he opened his eyes next. It took Robbie a very confused moment of trying to remember /why/ there were singing goblins in King Haggard's castle before he got his nineties classics all sorted out.

Robbie turned the volume down low and left the tv on, in case either of them were awakened by nightmares. He figured he may as well stay down here on the other end of the couch. It was almost six in the morning anyway, hardly worth the effort of going upstairs to bed. Besides, he felt sort of weird just leaving her all alone down here.

Ugh, what was wrong with him? He'd hated little kids ever since Gideon. Even though this summer had admittedly changed his mind on that a little. Mabel and her idiot brother were sort of annoyingly adorable, and they'd grown on him. Eventually.

So maybe it wasn't a totally weirdly lame thing that he wanted to protect this kid from monsters? (And by monsters, he didn't exactly mean the undead.)

Robbie chewed a corner of his lip and got up quietly, taking the bowls to the kitchen sink. He returned with a couple afghans and gently draped one over Pacifica, careful not to wake her. The other one was for him, as he settled in to fall asleep watching David Bowie kick some glittery ass.

All in all? Not a bad night.

\------

Pacifica was only a little wigged out to wake up on someone else's couch, which said plenty about how things had taken a turn in her life. The boy who had stayed with her all night was asleep, head tilted back to snore softly at the ceiling. He had a note pinned to his hoodie, probably by his mom.

Gently she reached over and prodded his shoulder. He moaned and sat up, blinking owlishly and rubbing his face. "Ugh, why is it so bright, I thought I painted over my windows," he muttered, not quite in the world yet.

"Hi."

Robbie jumped a little and she stifled a giggle. He didn't wake up very well, it seemed.

"Oh, hey," he said awkwardly, trying to sit up and look collected. Mostly he managed to look more disheveled. It was oddly comforting, not feeling like she had to impress him. Especially when he looked down at the note pinned to his chest and attempted to read it upside down, going a bit cross eyed.

Pacifica snorted and turned to hide her expression, clapping a hand over her mouth. Boys could be such adorable, endearing idiots sometimes, no matter how old they were.

A sharp knock on the front door jumped her heart into a panic and turned her into a mouse again. She glanced at Robbie, who took one look at her wan face and got the note off his chest, standing up to answer the door. Before he opened it, he motioned for her to sink down out of sight. Pacifica did so gratefully, having no desire to be 'collected' just yet.

Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland stood there, both looking rather solemn. "Oh, hello Robert. Your parents here?"

"They went out to do a cremation. Everything okay?" Robbie's voice was wary.

"You haven't happened to see a little blonde girl running around the graveyard?" Blubs asked hopefully. Pacifica curled in on herself, nervous. She could only hope she wasn't in trouble.

"It's way too dangerous for kids to play out there." Robbie answered vaguely. "Where's her parents?"

"Oh, the Northwests are both in the hospital," Deputy Durland blurted. "There was an incident at their mausoleum." Pacifica covered her mouth in horror.

"Oh no. Did they get bitten?" Robbie couldn't have put less concerned inflection in his tone if he'd tried. 

"Nothing like that, son, no. We'd be bringing them here to get formaldehyde doses like your father always told us to," Blubs assured him.

Pacifica exhaled quietly in relief. Her parents were awful, but she didn't want them to be actually hurt. She'd figured they'd be safe where they'd stubbornly chosen to dig in their heels for the night.

"No, what happened was they apparently drank the water from their big old decorative fountain and, eh . . . Let's just say their refined constitutions are a bit compromised," Blubs hedged, trying to be tactful.

"He means they're squirtin' from both ends," Durland stated proudly.

Robbie gave a surprised bark of laughter, that he tried and failed to pass off convincingly as a cough attack. Pacifica was having trouble stifling her own squeaks of mirth.

"Oh, Durland," Blubs chuckled fondly, shaking his head, "You always have such a way with words. Anyhow, call us if you see her. There's no rush to take her to see her parents, we just want to make sure she's eaten a good breakfast, gotten some rest. Certain /sources/ are suggesting she may have had a rough night."

"Yeah, I heard about that too. I'll make her some pancakes. Uh, you know, if I see her."

"Sure you will." Blubs gave him a friendly pat on the arm. "You're a good kid, Robbie."

He ducked his head, grinning slightly, and shut the door as they started back to their squad car. Robbie leaned over the couch and she beamed up at him.

"So, that engraved sign on your guys' fountain that reads 'Do Not Drink the Water' . . . that's still there, right?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "Gold-leaf border and all."

"How's it feel to be smarter than the average rich snobby adult?"

Pacifica laughed and threw a cushion at his head.

"Pretty great," she admitted. 

And it was.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> A decade ago, there was some scandal about Sprite and 7up turning into formaldehyde when left in a hot car. It was a PR upset that led to disclaimers of 'natural ingredients’ printed on the labels, and presumably a change of ingredients. Since warm Sprite is easier for people to swallow than pure formaldehyde, I can imagine the Valentinos would have stockpiled some of the old unchanged recipe.


End file.
